The Olympics Has Overtaken My House (As Has a Rogue Yankee Fan)

My 13-year-old daughter has been consumed by serious Olympics mania and it's threatening to overtake the house.

However I'm having a hard time putting the kibosh on her enthusiasm because the Olympics are the one time when women's sports receives even close to the volume and quality of media attention as the male athletes receive, so I've decided I'm going to try not to sweat her watching the events too often on TV (or on my iPad that she's slyly squired away from my office).

In the process, I'm kind of getting into the Olympic games too. Loved the Queen-James Bond thing during the otherwise yawn-fest known as the Opening Ceremonies. (I Tweeted all manner of snark during the ceremonies but couldn't stay up to the end. The Girl put herself to bed that night.) The Olympic events have been relatively exciting fare, though I could do with fewer shots of U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte's flashing his ridiculous diamond-encrusted American flag grill. (What a way to ruin a good photo of the talented swimmer.)

Now that we're several days into this, it's growing tough for me not to get on my daughter's case as she's watching events for hours. But I have to keep in mind somewhat inane house rule that I decreed many moons ago in a weak moment: Watching sports or news doesn't really count as the sedentary evil known as "watching TV." (That way they won't harass me when I'm watching hours of the now sad Boston Red Sox or am riveted to Morning Joe.)

The same, however, won't go for my now 11-year-old son who'll demand the opportunity to watch a gazillion episodes of wholesome fare like The Simpsons or Family Guy that he's recorded on our DVR. He will and in fact has argued that, hey, ya know, if she's watching TV he should get to watch TV too. (My response to his protests, "Dude, you can watch the Olympics too.")

Speaking of the 11-year-old and the Olympics . . .  I remain curious about for which country he'll be rooting during the games. It's not necessarily a given that he'll be rallying 'round the Stars and Stripes. You see, he's been in a rather defiant stage when it comes to sports teams for several years now, with no sign of easing up.

Many years ago, the kid decided, for some unexplained reason, that he was going to be a Yankees fan . . . when he lives in the heart of Red Sox Nation and hails from 100 percent Red Sox lineage. After I got over my initial shock, I argued with The Spouse that it was just a phase and that if we fought it or tried to persuade him of the error of his ways, his faux affection for the Evil Empire would become even more strident. So when we allowed him to get a Yankees cap, as much as it went against every that is good and holy, I figured this infatuation would be short-lived.

I was wrong.

In fact, his Yankees fan taunting has become more vocally grating this season as the Red Sox have fared about as well as Michael Dukakis' presidential general election campaign while the Yankees sit smugly atop the AL East. And The Youngest Boy, he's reveling in the mire of this Sox season, gloatingly calling my attention to the standings as I read the paper while drinking my morning coffee each morning. (Yes, I'm a dinosaur. I still read an actual, paper newspaper.)

So when we all sit down, as a family, to watch the Olympics together, I'm never certain for whom the kid'll be rooting. (Watching Sox-Yankees games have been rather unpleasant as of late as you might imagine.) But if he chooses to root for the team that's playing against the U.S. women's soccer team, he'll be on his own facing the wrath of his super-fan of a sister.

Loyalties aside, the grousing The Girl has done -- about the officiating at the U.S. Women's soccer game, about what she sees as an injustice done to Jordyn Wieber who'll be ineligible for the all-around gymnastics competition because the Olympic rules limit eligibility to two gymnasts per team -- has been epic. But it's only because of her unbound affection for all things U.S. women's soccer and U.S. women's gymnastics. The posters she made and placed in our family room featuring great female U.S. Olympians, while she's been donning her Abby Wambach jersey and eating the red, white and blue cupcakes she baked just for the Olympics, are visual reminders to her dedication. Crossing his parents and rooting for the Yankees is one thing. Crossing his sister and rooting against the U.S. women's soccer team is another thing entirely.

Go team.

Played Hooky on Mother's Day. And It Was Divine.

We played hooky on Mother's Day, my pal Gayle and I.

We left six kids with their fathers to attend to their various sporting and other sundry activities while we, the moms, went to Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox demolish the Cleveland Indians in absolutely ideal baseball weather.

We enjoyed a fresh brew beforehand at the Boston Beer Works (I partook of some Fenway Pale Ale), compared tales of our Mother's Day morns where we both were treated to homemade breakfasts (mine included homemade waffles with cinnamon apple syrup, fresh strawberries and a big, honkin' mug of hot coffee) along with homemade cards and gifts. (I wore one of my new Red Sox T-shirts to the game.)

We sat through the entire baseball game without hearing anyone whine about anything. (I did receive a couple of panicked texts pleading for me to intervene in a dispute one of my offspring had with The Spouse, but I opted to remain above the fray.)

We only shelled out dough for food and drink when we wanted something.

We only visited the restroom when we needed to do so.

After the glorious ball game (the Sox were triumphant, 12-1), those in attendance were invited to take a jaunt on the field (alas, on the perimeter of field, not on the grass). Gayle and I, Sox fans since we were but small children, got to peer into the dugouts, pose next to the Pesky pole, touch the Green Monster (making note of the white and red marks the baseballs left behind when they hit it) and try in vain to see through the narrow opening in the infamous wall. (Pics to come later.)

When we both rejoined our families later that evening, we were both thoroughly content having not rushed nor scurried about trying to appease one small person or another. We didn't witness any parental temper tantrums on the sidelines of a youth sports game. It was a perfect day off from the daily routines of child-rearing, one I didn't realize I needed as badly as I apparently did.

We played hooky on Mother's Day. And we loved it.

*Yawn* Sox Spring Training

The Red Sox are nine days into spring training at a sparkling new facility under the direction of an energetic new manager. But the ghosts of their disastrous 2011 season stubbornly refuse to fade away. – Peter Abraham, Boston Globe

Those ghosts continue to haunt me. I'm still nursing my grudge about 2011, me and plenty of other members of Red Sox Nation with whom I’ve been speaking as members of the 2012 Red Sox team start Spring Training. I'm usually excited about Spring Training. This year, not so much.

An epic fail last fall which wasted months of the team's hard work. A scandal-ridden several weeks where tales of sloth-like, beer swilling, idiotic antics in the clubhouse surfaced, along with Us Magazine-caliber gossip about the skipper of the sinking Red Sox ship, Terry Francona. Out went Terry. Out went Theo. In came a new GM and a new coach, neither of whom instill confidence in me. Gone are Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek.

And I remain ticked, skeptical and desirous of seeing some real contrition from these spoiled multi-millionaires who, with the exception of good guy Dustin Pedroia, don’t seem to care that their poor playing, lack of sportsmanship and work ethic let down an entire region which spends countless hours of their life watching their games, buying their pricey merchandise and, if they’re lucky enough to get the opportunity, dropping many dead presidents at Fenway Park in order to catch a game in person.

I’m actually pretty surprised at the level of irritation I still have against the Olde Town Team. It’s one thing for them to lose well-fought games that don't happen to go their way. That was the story for the first few decades of my Red Sox fandom. As long as the players and staff acted like they cared and put in effort, I didn't lose respect for them. But to lose because you really don’t seem like you care, because you’ve checked out, because you refuse to get into shape and selfishly won’t provide moral support to your teammates, that just doesn’t sit well with me, nor with many longtime Sox fans.

What will it take for me to stop being steamed at my favorite team and not to speak of them with disgust? I’m not sure. Maybe time? Maybe when the likes of Josh Beckett stop childishly complaining about “snitches” telling stories about his bad behavior and look in the mirror . . . wehre he'll see the face of the problem. These are not the kind of athletic role models I want my kids emulating.

The team that once proudly proclaimed it was comprised of good natured “idiots,” is now proving that that's still the case but not in a good spirited, win-the-World-Series and gut-it-out kind of way.

Three for Thursday: Must-See Documentary, Lessons from the Sox & Travel Ball

Be Sure to Watch (Or DVR) 'Miss Representation' Documentary

I’ve previously written about the powerful documentary, Miss Representation and how movingly and chillingly it lays out statistics and displays images to prove its case that the media treat women horribly and that this treatment has a dire impact on women, our daughters and our democracy. Featuring interviews with a wide range of women of all political stripes -- from the worlds of entertainment, political science and journalism -- Miss Representation is a must-see if you’re raising children who are learning from the media what it means to be female.

One of the saddest statistics in the documentary: The one about how 7-year-old girls and boys, in roughly equal numbers, say they want to be president but once they turn 15, the number of girls who want to be commander-in-chief plunges dramatically. (I reviewed the documentary, and the impact it has on kids here.)
I urge you to watch and/or tape/DVR the documentary which premieres tonight at 9 on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). It is slated to be repeated on OWN at 1 a.m. on Friday Oct. 21 and 10 a.m. on Saturday Oct. 22.

Lessons from the Sox

You know that horror story that’s continuing to unfold on Yawkey Way, the one about our family’s beloved Red Sox players phoning it in at the end of the season, drinking beer in the clubhouse while playing video games and eating buckets of fried chicken during games as the team collapsed in epic style, dropping from the American League East leaders to falling out of the playoffs?

In my house, the ongoing ugly saga has provided a host of heartbreaking lessons, teaching moments if you will:

The Importance of Loyalty: We heard a radio interview with a Picket Fence Post family favorite, Dustin Pedroia, who refused to push his teammates under the bus (even if they deserved it) after the media were filled with stories of ill-behaving ballplayers (which included reports of obnoxious behavior including drinking beer in the dugout, something the team angrily denies). Pedroia was honorable and modest and said he wants to play his entire career in a Red Sox uniform. They don't make many like him anymore.

The Importance of Hard Work/Cost of Not Working Hard: Pedroia, by all reports, gutted it out all season, as did Jacoby Ellsbury who had a good year. They earned and continue to receive our respect Those who seemed to be phoning it in (*cough Lackey*), and who have been described as failing to listen to the team’s trainers to keep fit, are finally being called to account for their slackery.

The Damage Done By Betrayal: When very personal information about now ex-Red Sox manager Terry Francona was divulged, gossip about his marriage and his health, many people were steamed because it appeared as though folks from the Sox organization dimed him out as a way to pin blame on him. Though one of the owners, John Henry, denied that he was behind the personal reveals – the Boston Globe said that “a team source” told them that “Francona was distracted by marital issues and his use of pain medication” – some believe that the organization is culpable for the trashing with ESPN’s Gordon Edes writing, “the slime bucket is never far from reach on Yawkey Way.”

The Olde Towne Team sustained some tarnish over the past few weeks. The luster of those two recent World Series wins has been diminished. The Picket Fence Post kids are learning the hard way that baseball is sometimes harsh business and that, regardless of who’s playing/coaching/running the team now, they won’t be there as long as we fans are. To some players, they’re just wearing a company jersey and they don’t care what jersey it is. And it shows.

Travel Ball: The Good and the Bad

The results are in: Both The Girl and The Eldest Boy made travel basketball teams. This is both good and bad.

Good: It’s good in that neither of them had to suffer the indignity of getting cut (as one of them did last year). They’ll both play at more competitive levels and hopefully improve their play, perhaps learn a few valuable things along the way.

Bad: This means that they will have at least one in-town team practice and game a week AND one travel team practice and game a week. Four separate events, minimum. (You have to play on an in-town team in order to also be on a travel team.)

More Bad: The Spouse is going to coach The Eldest Boy’s travel team and has signed up to coach The Girl’s in-town basketball team. This is good for the kids, who love having The Spouse for a coach, but for me, that means that for two additional weeknights, The Spouse will be unavailable and I’ll be on my own should The Youngest Boy have a hockey game or practice. (The hockey practices are not on one set day or time and we sometimes receive precious little notice when the times are set.)

At least I can remind myself that basketball games are held inside, in climate controlled environments so I won’t freeze like I do when I watch the hockey games. However the downside is that I can’t sip coffee in the gym.

The End of the Season (In More Ways Than One)

Our interfaith family may be marking the beginning of the new Jewish year this week, but we’ve also borne witness to the ignominious conclusion to the season of the previously league-leading Boston Red Sox in the span of a handful of historic, horrific minutes the other night.

Taking the fall for this record breaking disintegration, if you go by the latest news reports, will be the chief, Terry Francona. And despite what general manager Theo Epstein said about not making Francona the scapegoat, that’s exactly what people will think if Tito leaves.

This morning, after I’d told the kids that some of the folks I follow on Twitter were saying Francona was a goner, I was perusing my morning newspapers and spotted an item about the possible bankruptcy of Friendly’s, a chain of restaurants where my father once worked when he was a teen, where I worked when I was a teen and where the three Picket Fence Post kids love eating, especially for the sundaes. My grandparents used to take my brother and me there quite a lot when we were young.

“Hey, they’re saying that Friendly’s may be filing for bankruptcy,” I said casually.

“I can’t take all this bad news!” The Girl said despairingly.

And I didn’t quite know what to tell her, as I was feeling the same way.

Notes on a Family Vacation, from New England to Orlando

A random collection of observations from last week's trip where two 12-year-olds, a 9-year-old, a mom and a dad jumped on a plane in Providence, Rhode Island bound for Orlando, stayed for a week and visited all manner of amusement parks and a space center just to mix things up a little:

“Feeding our family is difficult.”

That was the astute observation of The Girl. It was also a gross understatement.

Take one mom with a dairy allergy, one 9-year-old insanely picky eater who pitches a nutty if he doesn’t eat something every two hours or so (preferably something with carbs), one 12-year-old boy who gets very distinct notions in his head about what he does and doesn’t want and toss in a trying-too-hard-to-please-everyone-dad and you have the recipe for angst and drama during lunch and dinner times. (We had breakfast at our room each day, so breakfast didn't stress anyone out and I could eat without fearing that I was being poisoned.)

When your eating choices are limited to the crap at amusement parks for most of the week, by Day 6 figuring out what to do for lunch for people with disparate needs becomes a tense proposition. Add to that the fact that I wound up going on an involuntary diet comprised of mostly salads --because they were safer choices for me because they didn't contain dairy -- that yielded one hungry, cranky mom. Made me long for being back at home where I could control the ingredients in my own food.

Key Cards are Cool and Coveted, Apparently

The Picket Fence Post kids still argue over who gets to push the button to call the elevator, press the button for the floor number and who gets to use the hotel key card. Somehow, these things never get old and they never seemed to work it out between the three of them.

Image credit: IMDB.com

Princess Fiona as a Human Princess, Not an Ogre

While we were visiting Universal Studios, The Spouse made his own interesting observation: In nearly all the images of Princess Fiona on the products for sale in the gift shop at the end of the Shrek ride, she was shown in her human form, not as Shrek’s ogre wife. Why?

Red Sox Nation Really is a Nation

The Picket Fence Post family wore Boston Red Sox caps a lot while we were in Florida, a fact that tended to elicit a lot of responses from people, ranging from thumbs up and knowing nods to sarcastic digs:

The wise-cracking Donkey from Shrek, who was posing with the other characters from the film and amusement park-goers, broke out into Boston's “More Than a Feeling” upon hearing that we were from the Boston area and noticing our hats.

A guy running an amusement park game in the Amity section of Universal Studios kept yelling out, “Hey! Boston Red Sox!” every time I saw him. It was cool the first time. After that, it was just awkward.

The manager of a nice hotel restaurant, upon learning that we were from the Boston (as we weren’t wearing our hats in the restaurant), talked our ears off about the Sox and the time he said he used to work for the team. Afterward, we couldn't decide if he'd really worked for them or whether he was just trying to chat up gullible tourists. You never can tell.

One cute-as-button senior citizen employee manning the Men in Black ride at Universal saw our hats and eagerly pulled out his wallet and extracted a laminated photo of himself and his grown daughter standing in front of the baseball diamond at Fenway Park. He wanted to let us know he was a "real fan."

That was a stark contrast to the snarky hotel employee who gave The Youngest Boy’s Miami Heat hat his approval while telling the rest of us he’d have to overlook our Sox caps.

Once our waiter at the NBA City restaurant learned we were Sox fans from the Hub, he told us he was a Yankee fan but would still give us good service nonetheless.

We ran into another Yankee fan at the car rental return next to the airport who joked that he was going to charge us at a higher rate for being members of Red Sox Nation.

And there must’ve been at least one other female Red Sox fan in the women’s bathroom in the Jurassic Park section of Universal Studios because when The Girl accidentally left her Sox cap there, it never turned up again, despite the fact that we checked the bathroom and Lost & Found three times over the course of three days.

Jaws & Reliving the 70s

The Spouse got to relive part of his 70s childhood by venturing onto the Jaws ride at Universal Studios. Twice. I, the Picket Fence Post family's ride wimp, accompanied him during his second time through while the three kids, who had absolutely zero interest in the ride, sulked on a bench and played with my cell phone. As the cheesy plastic shark first emerged from the water, The Spouse and I realized that this was the only time during the daylight hours that we'd alone the whole week.

Space Shuttle: The Last Mission

It poured, absolutely poured to the point where you couldn’t see the road in front of you, as we were driving from Orlando to the Kennedy Space Center and The Youngest Boy was thoroughly ticked that we’d taken a day off from patronizing amusement/theme parks and opted to visit a NASA institution. And boy, did he let us know it, during that awful car ride in torrential downpours.

After spending a half hour sitting in the parking lot and waiting for the rain to let up, then another half hour standing in line to buy tickets to get into the Space Center, we finally boarded a bus to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis that's currently sitting on the launch pad. By the time we scaled the observation deck, luckily The Youngest Boy’s skepticism, and whining, was on the wane. When we left, he was thoroughly impressed, mostly because he "touched the moon," meaning a moon rock that was available for people to touch.

Image credits: Meredith O'Brien, IMDB.com.

Quick Hits from the Picket Fence Post Family

Mangling the Bike Tire

Scene: Backing out of garage to drive The Girl to soccer practice. A loud crunch followed.

Action: I got out to discover that I’d run over the front tire of a kid’s bike. A boy visiting the house had parked his bike behind my car. He said he’d leaned it up against the bush, next to the garage door. Whether he did or whether he didn't (or whether it fell over), is irrelevenat. The bike tire wound up being crunched nonetheless.

Conclusion: We’ve offered to pay for a replacement. No word from the kid’s parents on a pricetag though.

Fun with Tornado Warnings

The Picket Fence Post family spent some quality time in The Spouse’s basement home office last week after the weather forecasters were predicting – erroneously it turned out – that a powerful storm cell was headed in our direction, a cell that had already spawned deadly and destructive tornadic activity in western Massachusetts.

I set The Girl and The Youngest Boy up with snacks, a laptop computer, headphones and Malcolm in the Middle DVDs while I watched the TV news with The Eldest Boy and I Tweeted up a storm (no pun intended). I freaked out a bit when we received a warning call on our home phone from authorities suggesting that we “seek shelter” but tried (probably unsuccessfully) to keep it all cool on the outside as I kept in touch with my folks who live in the Springfield area which was hit with tornados. (They were fine).

The following day, The Eldest Boy came home from school and told me “no one” he knew had gone to the basement during the storm (a fact that other parents with whom I later spoke refuted). But then again, The Eldest Boy likes to paint me as an overcautious helicopter parent, and is fond of making sport of his old mom.

Permit Me This One Tangent . . .

When you’re a parent on the sidelines of a youth sporting event and you see that a kid on your kid’s team has been struggling, it’s not helpful to start smack-talking about how much he's stinking up the joint. Seriously. Plus, you never know if that kid’s parents are sitting nearby. Consider this a public service announcement.

Bruins Mania

I’m feeling a tad guilty at the moment. When the Boston Red Sox were in the World Series in 2004 and 2007, I, ever the enthusiastic fan, made signs which said, “Go Sox” and put them in our front windows.

However when the Celtics were in the NBA Finals, I didn’t put signs in the windows. It’s not that I didn’t care if they won or lost. We in the Picket Fence Post family watched the Finals and rooted for the C’s, but I wouldn’t say that any of us are totally nuts for the team like The Spouse and I are for the Sox.

But when the Bruins made it to the Stanley Cup finals, The Youngest Boy, our resident hockey player, was so jazzed about it that he asked me if we could put signs in the windows like we did in 2007. I said that we would because it’s only fair.

The sad part is, like the Bruins (last night’s game notwithstanding), we’ve kind of gotten off to a slow start what with youth soccer and baseball games, school projects and the like haven’t gotten around to making those signs yet. But now that the Bruins have kick-started their finals play with last night’s shellacking of Vancouver, I’m hoping that’ll kick-start our sign making.

T-Minus 4 Days 'Til Opening Day . . .

Forget the freezing temperatures, bitter New England winds and March snow flurries.

Forget the middle and grade school science projects about which The Spouse and I have to nag my three kiddos.

Forget the never-ending youth hockey season with games in bone-chillingly cold ice rinks.

It's almost Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox . . . when all will be right with the world (as long as the pitching holds on and the *knock on wood* injuries remain at bay).